From Frank Turner’s 2008 album Love, Ire and Song to the Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and the A.V. Club’s review (that I’ve just read )regarding LCD Soundsystem’s recent This Is Happening, there appears to be something happening in music. It appears to be, once again, speaking for a generation.
I know that not everyone who reads this blog will have heard all of these albums, and admittedly, I haven’t heard This Is Happening myself. But you don’t need to be familiar with the lyrics to understand what I am about to tell you about them. Because, you see, all of them are talking about something I and my friends have been having a complex and multifaceted time dealing with and discussing: growing up.
Could Toys ‘R’ Us have been right? All of those commercials, I can still remember the first part of the song I used to sing: ‘I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid…’ I used to know all the lyrics. And what I find so interesting about this subject, is that it has crossed my mind from so many different directions that it has finally begun to trace something like a bull’s eye in the center, the likes of which I am trying to throw a dart at as we speak.
I’ve read in numerous articles over the past few months, from periodicals such as The New York Times and Time Magazine, that my generation is showing a disturbing new trend: We are not growing up. Or at least, this is the broad conclusion being drawn by many professionals. The bare bones of the sociological study regarding this subject are that young adults ages 18-28 are not moving out of their parent’s houses.
Obviously, the economy has a lot to do with this- especially the collapsed housing market. Add on top of that the fact that we face minimal job opportunities post-graduation, and the tightening of purse strings is universal. I would wager to say that many are staying with their parents because of one or more of the following reasons:
• They cannot afford to move out on their own
• Their parents cannot afford for them to move out on their own (thereby missing that added kick toward the mortgage payment)
• They cannot find steady work, and the financial security that comes with it, that allows one to peacefully sign a long-term lease
• They are broke and swimming in debt from student loans and/or medical bills
Now, obviously these four points I’m making all assume that everyone, like me, wants to move out on their own as soon as possible. Where a study to be conducted, I would again wager that I would be right in this assumption- but then again, I usually think I am right. What irks me about these findings is that everyone is assuming these people just want to play with their ipods and aren’t willing to get a job. That, my friends, I declare BS.
I have little to back me up on this Proclamation of the Bogus except personal experience. A close relative of mine, for example, has struggled to maintain a living wage and his own apartment for years. It certainly isn’t because he wants to live off of others’ hard work- that I can guarantee. Many friends of mine, upon graduation, have spent a year or more looking for work, in the meantime taking whatever jobs they can, and eventually are forced to move back in with their parents. Most of my friends have three or more roommates.
But I digress- because the point is that no, we don’t want to grow up. But not in the way you think we don’t. You’re very close to the mark, Society, but you’re just a little over the top of the main idea.
Privacy, independence, free will, all we hold dear, essentially, is only achieved in one’s 20’s by NOT living with your parents. So what do I mean then, when I say that I don’t want to grow up? I mean what Frank Turner meant, that the fight’s still in me and I’m not willing to let it die out in the face of how I am supposed to age. Like all of the superficial, fantastic, and multicolored pop and dance music I throw in on a Friday night, I just want to dance and talk about music and sit in coffee shops and engage with groups of people like me until I die. I just want to play, and I want to retain my ability to see the magical and naive, because I think something my generation has come to the conclusion of, is that when you lose that ability, you lose something really important. And honestly, it looks like the last couple of generations, and especially our parents, lost that ability long ago.
You lose a piece of that child-like magic when you divorce, when you buy a house you know you can’t afford, when you succumb to apathy, or bitterness, or a permanent state of drunkenness. When you get too much power, or worry over not having enough. When you let yourself focus on the car ride instead of the bike ride. These things are so common, and they are pulling you apart piece by piece.
So I don’t want to grow up like you did- like you do. I am holding on to what I still have and working toward understanding what I already left behind. I live on my own, I go to work and I succeed in school. And I may have to move back in with my parents after I graduate. But I am a child in all of the right ways. Like those Arcade Fire songs, I am willing myself to let go of the adult-themed adolescence I had; to let go of the disillusionment that won over when punk rock failed me and the rest of the world wasn’t any better than my parents. But you see, because we are taking a little more time with the dialogue… great things can happen.
Ahhhhhh this strange path! Sure! It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. And I like to think it’s changing the way things might be done- the way the next generation might be raised. With a little more wonder and a little less drama maybe. A bigger mind and a more fluent tongue. This is what I like to think of when I realize I sometimes relate more to my friend’s kids then I do my friends- that really, the faith and hope I have for me and mine is a faith and hope I have for the future we will create.
Don’t be so negative, folks. It was bad, yeah, and sometimes it still is. But it’s what we choose to let go of that defines us more then what we choose to hold on to. At least, that’s what I like to think on days like this. And on matters such as these, I really am the betting type.
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